Insofar as pharma M&As are concerned, 2018 is turning out to be a milestone year with more than US$ 170 billion invested in the first quarter alone. While March saw a steep climb in deal values with the Cigna-Express Scripts US$ 67 billion acquisition, April remained significant for Novartis’ renewed interests in gene therapy — the Swiss pharma giant acquired AveXis, a clinical-stage gene therapy company, for US$ 8.7 billion. Novartis retains focus on gene therapy with US$ 8.7 billion...
The year started with big bang M&A deals and was the most active January for deal making in over a decade with Sanofi and Celgene dominating the headlines.
French drugmaker Sanofi started off by announcing it had closed a deal to acquire Biogen spinout Bioverativ, a maker of drugs for hemophilia, for almost US$ 11.6 billion.
While debt-laden Teva led the deals in September through its disinvestment efforts, the biggest pharma deal in October was also from the world of generics as Amneal decided to merge with Impax.